NEAG Meeting update

Those who attended yesterday were treated to an 'all bells and whistles' (literally) when Dave Boorman brought along his US acquisition of an American RTR diesel with on board sound decoder. The sound was quite impressive and, as I understand it, so was the price.

Also there to be viewed were all but two boards of the scenic scenic side of Bob Jones Fence Houses. It just fits into the hall with about a foot to spare.

The box making session went ahead and it wasn't long before I had produced the new box for my collet set. Those who were there may find the picture interesting. I have added little compartments in which to store the various items contained in the box so they don't slop about and given the inside a 'lick' of paint. Of course the same thing can be done with a stock box and as long as your trains aren't too long it's possible to store a complete train.


Don't forget engine + van = train..........

Mick S

In the Distant

North East Area Group meeting information.
Saturday 6th February 2010
Saint Barnabas Church Hall, Bournmoor.
Time - Please Note 2.00pm – 5.00pm. (approx.)

Recently I was asked to put on my EM Gauge Society hat and do a demonstration at my local area group meeting in the Scottish borders on how I made some stock boxes from cardboard.

I accepted and assessed what the necessary materials would cost. The cost of card and the covering paper, whilst not particularly expensive precluded the cardboard approach to card stock boxes in 4mm scale. So I gave the organiser of that group an option and he decided to accept my supposition that maybe the EM boys might not want to make their own boxes when there may well be a commercial product available for the same or similar outlay. However that is not necessarily the case in relation to 2 millimetre scale. It got me thinking that quite a good while ago now, I made some similar boxes from card and they have proved to be surprisingly strong and are still in daily use. So, never being one to miss a topic for our group meetings, at the next meeting I will be showing everyone how I built stock boxes for items of 2mm rolling stock using card.

If anyone wants to partake then bring along some reasonable quality card, mounting card is ideal, a pencil, and some paper to cover the construction, a sharp scalpel blade, a steel ruler or straight edge, some white wood glue, and have a rough idea of how big a box you want to make. As a guide, if the box to be made measures 6” x 4” x 2” then a sheet of card 18” square should be ample. In fact that might even make a smaller box as well.

So far as covering paper is concerned, it could be possible to use sheets from almost any old magazine. The drawback with this is you will need to paint it afterwards. Like me you may prefer to go to one of those handy craft shops and buy a sheet of coloured paper for about £1.00 which will finish the job off nicely. The results do not necessarily have to be used for stock and as an illustration of this the one I will be making on the day will be for my set of ER16 collets that I bought recently from ebay for use on my Unimat 3.


So there you are – it’s going to be a bit like a Blue Peter program - except they don’t have pizzas and corned beef pies for their tea………!

Mick S

20th Century Boy :: 21st Century Schizoid Man

The dawn of a new decade! (Unless you're a pedant and propose waiting another 12 months.) New resolutions, new dreams, new aims!

Hang on a minute. I didn't complete a single layout in the last decade. And my previous effort was completed in the last Century. So much for focus and drive...

I really must make an effort to get Brafferton finished by 2020. (Diamond Jubilee Layout Challenge, anyone?) To have it something like presentable by July would be a great bonus and progress is currently steady but sure. To alleviate the boredom of wiring, I'm also pushing on with the scenics. The station buildings need resolving; there is not a scrap of the original buildings remaining and I have three photographs all showing much the same detail all at oblique angles.

Using some fairly rudimentary drafting skills, counting brick courses and extrapolating measurements from the photos, and also using various written commentaries, I cobbled together some elevations for the main buildings. These were then copied, pasted to card and rough mock-ups made. Satisfied with the proportions of these, I roughed-up some platforms with a view to getting the best placement for the buildings:

As you may be aware, the full size station was dead straight, but the model is on a constant curve. I'm not sure that making the buildings as a curve would particularly work (!), so some compromise is necessary. Original plasterwork has had to be carved back to give sufficient space for the buildings. You can also see here that I've reworked the rear of the scenery to accommodate the siding more subtly:

Down on the floor, some impression can be gained of the effect aimed for. The road bridge seems suitably distant:

This is one of the few photos I possess of the real thing; in this instance, kindly sourced by Andy Hanson. If anybody has a couple of dozen unpublished shots of the the station, I can arrange a trade-in for beer tokens:

Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends

Having fallen off the railway modelling map for some six months, I am now managing to get some modelling done. Our business purchased a second outlet in July and needless to say, this has taken up much of my time!

Anyway, back to more interesting stuff. The priority is to get the layout fully functioning by EXPO 2010 (you haven't forgotten about that, have you?). The second and third boards needed wiring and a bit of trackwork completing. To ease myself gently back in, I started with the third board which only has two points forming a crossover. After a few teething problems (mainly me not reading the Tortoise instructions; the switching contacts aren't Left/Common/Right as I'd assumed, but Left/Right/Common), everything seems to work well on here. The temporary loose wires will be replaced by plugs and sockets at each board joint.

On to the second (middle) board now. This need a few bits of plain trackwork inserting before starting the wiring. Here are the three scenic boards assembled. Looks like I need a bigger house...

NEAG Meeting Update

Thanks are due to Edward Sissling who brought along the 'T' cut, masking tape, cocktail sticks and BR number transfers together with his shed allocations book for the period 1948 onwards.

As the picture shows Edward did a demonstration of how to easily remove a proprietary locomotive number while we all watched. Following that we all, following his lead, (well those of us who came prepared that is) then removed the numbers from our chosen item of rolling stock. What a lot of Bachmann Class 24's there are about today......! My own loco now has a new identity of D5096 allocated to Gateshead shed in the very early 1960's. It has been taken away and is currently being sent to 'Santa' and I'll not be able to play sorry run it until Christmas morning. Huh....!

Clever use of masking tape and 'T' cut soon did the trick after which it was simply a matter of adding digits that represent the new number. Realy quite simple - and painless. For one of our new year meetings Edward is going to show us how his locomotives are weathered. This is something that has attracted favourable comment so he thought it would be worth a session.

We look forward to it.

Mick S

In the Distant December 2009

North East Area Group meeting information.

Saturday 12th December 2009 Saint Barnabas Church Hall Bournmoor. Time - Please Note 2.00pm – 5.00pm. (approx.)

In the Distant is a little earlier this time to allow sufficient time for you to prepare for the meeting. This time, because it’s Christmas, for a bit of fun we are having an ‘everyone joins in’ day. It is desirable there should be no spectators.

Edward Sissling is going to show us all how he re-numbers proprietary rolling stock items with the emphasis on us doing it with him.

Please bring along any RTR steam or diesel loco you have in your possession that you would like to give a different identity to. If you don't want to risk a loco then an old wagon or van at least. All participants (that means everybody - me included) need to do just a little bit of research into the number of the loco they want to change beforehand (local shed, or shed suitable for their layout project). Edward will assist you with the research if you drop him an ‘e’ mail. He has plenty of information on shed allocations etc. He also has BR steam era decals he is willing to make available. For the BR blue and later periods people will need to get an order into Fox Transfers ASAP. Their online store is very good and deliveries are fast. Edward also has a supply of masking tapes but people may want to invest in a set of the superb Tamiya narrow masking tapes which can be obtained from Squires if not locally.

Cocktail sticks and T-Cut will be provided on the day so bring along a small bottle or empty Humbrol tinlet to put yours in. You’ll not have enough left over to do the car though....!

Fox Transfers
http://www.fox-transfers.co.uk/index.cgi?redirect=done
Squires
http://www.squirestools.com/ or you can ring them on 01243 842424

Edward Sissling ‘e’ mail (available if needed - by posting a comment)

Don’t forget this is our Christmas bash so in addition to our normal fayre there will be mince pies etc.

Hope to see as many of you at Blyth, or Darlington shows before then. That might be a good place to buy some of the items you may need.

Mick S

From the 'wish you were here' brigade....!

With very little recent activity here greetings with a very short posting live from Spalding Model Railway Exhibition which shows what I've been up to. The pictures on the left show roughly half of the hall in which we were situated. There was another equally large hall too. Astute observers will spy Yvonne sitting beneath the fiddle yard chatting to another railway lady on the layout next to us. (lower picture) Although not what could be called a fine scale show there are one or two gems here.

The model shot is a rather poor one taken too close to the subject using my mobile phone but shows the J94 hauling a train of empty FMF 21 ton coal hoppers just about to cross the new road bridge on the recently introduced extension. I'll update the blog with some decent shots of the extension on our return North.